Wednesday, July 29, 2009

While it was certainly in interesting read, the article is primarily focused on individual cases of a person showing signs of having been brainwashed...such as the famous Patty Hearst case.

However, when one considers the various points made in the article, and apply them to our socially engineered society as a whole...I think it's more than obvious that we do in fact live in a society that has been brainwashed en masse.

For instance...look at the various methods and techniques employed to brainwash the individual, than realize that in fact some of them can certainly be applied in the dissemination of propaganda through the mainstream media as a means of brainwashing our entire society.

Repeated confrontation: The repeated confrontation method supposedly serves to "break down a person’s resistance, expose poor habits, and allow the person to start over with correct methods and new goals,"

This seems like the most commonly used technique in the various forms of -isms, all employed to get people to "start over with correct methods and new goals." Liberal-ism, environmental-ism, femin-ism...all based on continually"confronting" the people with their crimes by association to get them to fall into the "correct" way of thinking and doing things. Mass media and public education continually hammer their themes home into our consciousness, over and over again. The multitude of portrayals of incompetent, moronic fathers in entertainment and commercials; the constant normalization of homosexuality; SAVE THE PLANET...GO GREEN; the perpetuation of racism and class envy...all these themes that literally saturate our culture and institutions are no doubt all apart of the social engineers implementing the "repeated confrontation" method.

Education and re-education: Before the term brainwashing was introduced, the same techniques and effects were referred to as "re-education," in the U.S. and[sic] in the Soviet Union especially.

Brainwashing is especially effective during times of transition: During times of major social, political or personal transition, the brain is most vulnerable to brainwashing.

In hindsight, I can certainly see how I myself fell for the whole "war on terror" spiel after watching 9/11 coverage. By taking everything reported on in the media at face value, not questioning the official storyline, and buying into this concept of "you're either for us or against us" mentality, I voted for Bush, and joined the chorus of right wingers that jeered and dismissed any and all voices of dissent in the rush to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, justify torture, and the loss of civil liberties. Mass brainwashing is in fact most effective when coupled with huge social political events. While 9/11 serves as the most high profile case study here, the most recent one can certainly be seen in analyzing the mass brainwashing that took place to get Barack Obama elected President. HOPE AND CHANGE WE CAN BE BRAINWASHED TO BELIEVE IN!

Guilt, confession and shaming techniques: Making victims feel guilty or shameful for putting faith in their original convictions, lifestyle, or family and friends is an effective technique for forcing them to accept new ideas.

This goes hand in hand with my prior comment on the first technique, repeated confrontation. This is how people are conditioned to accept the lies of all the false ideologies...the -isms.

Confinement and isolation: Keeping victims confined and away from the people and environments that are familiar to them breaks down resistance and is a technique often used to brainwash individuals.

This is why college has become the primary institution for brainwashing the masses into becoming politically correct, socialist and globalist minded Sheeple that vote Liberal Democrat, accept homosexuality and other deviant sexual behavior as normal, and to learn to hate their country, ethnicity and cultural heritage. At no time are people more susceptible to societal brainwashing than when they are young, inexperienced, and out away from parental, familial and community influence for the first time in their lives.

Despite torture, victims often end up feeling a bond between themselves and their captors: After accepting the new ideals of the group, victims will also accept their treatment and even feel bonded and loyal to their captors.

Heh...does this not describe the typical liberal socialist progressive singing the praises of the Government as the best means of "fixing" society?

Mystical Manipulation: This mind control technique is used to convince victims that their captors or leaders experience divine intervention. Supposedly spontaneous "magic" or spiritual-like experiences will occur, making the brainwashers seem more powerful and truthful, but it is actually an orchestrated plan designed to trick victims.

Heh...kinda like the mainstream media's deification and sycophancy of Barack Obama, eh? 8 months in, and we are certainly seeing more and more evidence accumulate that Obama most certainly "tricked" the victims into selling himself as the cure all for what ails America.

Purity and perfection: Brainwashers and cult groups force victims to become converts who wholly accept and support the ideals of the group. The group is considered the only true way to become pure and good, and members must always strive for perfection.

Follow the mainstream dictates of political correctness, and you too can become an environmentally conscious, diverse, multicultural, global citizen who is least likely to commit the thought-crimes of racism, homophobia, patriotism, and misogyny!

Time control: Psychologist Margaret Singer lists time control as an effective brainwashing or mind control technique, which requires that manipulators or cult leaders monitor and designate the way victims spend their time, including what they think about at any given moment.

While this method has been employed in an almost imperceptible manner on society as a whole, nevertheless, evidence of this it most certainly noticeable if you take a step back and look at the big picture.

Just as an example, look at feminism: women were steered towards pursuing careers and financial independence, instead of getting married, bearing and raising children. This has certainly influenced the majority of women how they should spend their time.

And the many consequences that have also come from this engineered change in cultural norms have manifest in ways that also dictate how we all spend our time.

The double income/no-children household, as well as the proliferation of single mother households subsidized by Government welfare programs has all played major factors in driving up the cost of housing to the point in which anyone that hopes to own their own house, has to tie themselves to a 30 year debt obligation. This certainly dictates how a homeowner spends his or her time for at least three decades!

Ideals and beliefs are viewed as black and white: There is no room for debate, analysis or questioning when brainwashing. A victim must completely accept any new ideas and wholly reject any competing beliefs, lifestyles, people or experiences.

Climate Change...War on Terror...War on Drugs...Gender Wage Gap...Her body, her choice...women have always been oppressed...

...the list of ideals and beliefs that are black and white are almost too numerous to list. But talking and debating with people that hold such indoctrinated beliefs easily shows this mentality. When given an indisputable point of contention that they cannot refute logically, and they refuse to even try and consider the alternate view point in the face of such evidence, rest assured, that's a good indicator that you are not arguing with a free thinking, objective, mind. No, you've just encountered one of the many millions of minds thoroughly washed into compliance with the Brave New World Order's Sheeple Programming.

Dehuminzation and demonization: Cult or group leaders may dehumanize or demonize outside people or ideas in order to make their ideas seem more like the only true, good way..

This is the primary technique for whipping up the country to support wars of foreign imperialism for corporate profits.

While I thought the article was insightful, I take issue with the final "fact" under techniques and methods:

Brainwashing is more of a pop culture phenomenon rather than a scientific fact...

Move along folks, nothing to see here. Of course you haven't been subjected to brainwashing by the Corporatist Elite media and educational establishment that sought to make you into nothing more than a mindless consumer and a human resource, to be tagged, tracked, monitored, controlled and enslaved. Brainwashing is just the fanciful fantasy of fictional screenwriters and novelists...not an actual, deliberate program used to shape your thoughts, actions and behavior! That could never happen in the real world...

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Phyllis Schlafly is still going after all these years of opposing the Feminazi's...

The first half of her latest column contains a list of "Did You Know..." questions that are I think a perfect laundry list you can present to someone to get them to see just how unfair and unjust the Family Court System has become in it's treatment of Father's and Husbands...

DID YOU KNOW....

...that a family court can order a man to reimburse the government for the welfare money, falsely labeled "child support," that was paid to the mother of a child to whom he is not related? Did you know that, if he doesn't pay, a judge can sentence him to debtor's prison without ever letting him have a jury trial?

...that debtor's prisons (putting men in prison because they can't pay a debt) were abolished in the United States before we abolished slavery, but that they exist today to punish men who are too poor to pay what is falsely called "child support"?

...that when corporations can't pay their debts, they can take bankruptcy, which means they pay off their debts for pennies on the dollar, but a man can never get an alleged "child support" debt forgiven or reduced, even if he is out of a job, penniless and homeless, medically incapacitated, incarcerated (justly or unjustly) or serving in our Armed Forces overseas, can't afford a lawyer, or never owed the money in the first place?

...that when a woman applying for welfare handouts lies about who the father of her child is, she is never prosecuted for perjury? Did you know that judges can refuse to accept DNA evidence showing that the man she accuses is not the father?

...that alleged "child support" has nothing to do with supporting a child because the mother has no obligation to spend even one dollar of it on a child, and in many cases none of the "support" money ever gets to a child because it goes to fatten the payroll of the child-support bureaucracy?

These are among the injustices that the feminists, and their docile liberal male allies, have inflicted on men.

Yes, I already knew all this...as I'm sure all you that read my blog already do. But many people have no clue about this reality.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

This woman, Andrea McNulty claims Pittsburgh Steeler's QB, Ben Roethlisberger, raped her a little over a year ago, and she has now filed a multi-million $$ civil lawsuit.

Am I skeptical? Hell yes I am...there has been far too many cases as of late for which a woman claims rape by a high profile celebrity, and goes for the $$$ rather than real justice.

There was no criminal case filed...it's literally a he-said, she-said, civil case at this point. This is a legal travesty that in fact Ben was never arrested, never allowed the right to a speedy trial or the right to have a jury trial. No, this accuser gets to simply file a lawsuit claiming damages so she can get as much $$ as possible.

If you were really, truly raped, than a CRIME has been committed, and the proper channel's to deal with it is supposed to be the criminal courts...not civil court.

Furthermore, I'm betting the end game here is to extort Ben into settling out of court for an undisclosed sum.

I think this points to a current legal reality that needs some serious attention, and my solution is simple:

A civil case regarding damages caused by supposed criminal activity SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED UNLESS A CONVICTION PROVING THE GUILT HAS BEEN ATTAINED.

I.e....celebrities worth millions of dollars should be immune from civil lawsuits regarding rape (or any other serious charges) unless they are convicted and proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have committed the crime.

Finally...take a good look at this woman's picture. Does it really pass the smell test?

A high profile, multi-millionaire athlete...the starting QB of the recent, Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers -- does he really NEED to rape a lady like this?

Please. Ben could simply show face at any bar or club in the country and walk out of there with a bevvy of ladies that would jump at the opportunity to sleep with a high profile, rich celebrity athlete.

For those of you that have immersed yourself in studying culture, feminism, and the socially engineered changes in gender roles in our current society, do you find that you can no longer watch movies without noticing the dynamics of social interaction between characters? I know I have.

Hollywood has been one of the most effective means of shaping the masses views, morality and behavior, and when one develops an acute awareness to these sorts of messages and cultural cues they seek to instill in the viewers of their products, it suddenly becomes blatantly obvious. I now find myself recognizing our Brave New World Order's indoctrination cues about human relations, present in just about every new movie, tv-show and commercial I see nowadays.

I haven't watched a movie in the theatres quite some time actually...the last movie I went and saw in the theaters was Mongol.

However, the other night, my wife and I rented the DVD of Liam Neeson's action flick, Taken.

Overall, I thought the picture was alright...but some of the dialogue and dynamics in the characters familial relationships prevented me from allowing myself to be completely immersed into enjoying the story.

Neeson plays an ex-CIA agent that quit his spy career to move to California so he could be closer to his daughter...who lives with his ex-wife and her mega-rich step-Father.

His ex-wife is an utter bitch who is definitely trying to interfere in the relationship between Father and Daughter. Neeson's character is supposed to be a bad ass, take no prisoners killer...but he is absolutely sackless and emasculated when it comes to dealing with his ex-wife.

Fearless ex-CIA agent that kills thugs and criminals with his bare hands,reduced to sackless wimpitude in the face of his ex-wife's bitching.

In one of the best scenes in the movie, the man boldly dissembles his way into the heart of an Albanian organized crime ring headquarters, than proceeds to kill multiple men, all with the demeanor of a man with ice running through his veins...yet in the scene's where she begins her bitching, complaining and accusations towards him, he's a spineless wimp that deserves to be divorced and have his role as father displaced by mommy's new husband.

While the movie definitely portrays a negative image of the ex-wife as a totally unreasonable bitch, the overall theme here is that she holds all the cards, and the assumption of authority as the custodial parent is unquestionable. Neeson is reduced to a begging, pleading, whining shell of a masculine man when it comes to dealing with her.

From my perspective, it was utterly disgusting to watch.

But the worst was how later in the movie, the ex-wife alludes to the reason why she divorced him.

The old "You were always working, you were never around."

This is the worst.

Men are supposed to be the providers, but if they work really hard at providing, than that's grounds for divorce?

And yet, when she hurls out these accusations and puts all of the blame on their failed marriage on Neeson's character, he has no response. He takes that blame and accepts it wholly.

This is in fact the cultural cue of the feminist movement writ large: It's always the Man's fault.

As if it's perfectly acceptable for a woman to break up her marriage, alienate their daughter from her father, and re-marry...simply because the man was "always working" i.e. he was performing his gender role of provider. Not cheating, beating her up, shooting drugs. No, working...providing for his wife and daughter.

Needless to say, while the action was fun to watch, noticing such underlying theme's and relationship messages pretty much ruined my overall enjoyment of the entire movie.

The Brave New World Order's subversive indoctrination propaganda messages are present in almost all movies...some more than others. But now that my eyes have been opened, it's literally destroyed much of the enjoyment I used to get out of watching movies.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Good God, I feel like I'm Alice in Wonderland, finding out exactly how far the rabbit hole really goes....

I've often heard several different PSA's on various radio stations, advocating a "PLANT-BASED DIET" as the key to preventing cancer.

Inspired by ruminations and reading I did for my last post, I decided to delve a little further. The most memorable PSA I can recall having heard multiple times, is one done by Anthony Hopkins. I guess it's most memorable because whenever I heard it, I'd always chuckle at the thought of Hannibal Lecter telling people to eat a vegetarian diet...

Anyhow, you can listen for yourself to the PSA I'm talking about here, as well as read/listen/watch to a few other PSA's dedicated to pushing vegetarian "plant-based" diets as the key to preventing cancer.

While I don't have the time to check any and all references (I suppose I could, but than, I think I already know how this is going to turn out...), I read the Diet and Cancer Research page on the Cancer Project website.

When I got to the concluding sentence of the introductory paragraph (which is usually where a thesis statement placed in an exposition written to convince the reader of some position,) was this:

Overall, these studies showed significant reductions in cancer risk among those who avoided meat. 4

Our study sample included patients having colonoscopy at three colonoscopy practices in New York City between April 1986 and March 1988. In total, 2988 patients were evaluated. Of these, 2443 (81.8%) were eligible for our study (patients had to be between 35 and 84 years of age; reside in New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut; speak English or Spanish; and have colonoscopy to at least the splenic flexure). The colonoscopists completed data sheets indicating the reason for colonoscopy and the clinical findings at the time of colonoscopy. The study pathologist reviewed slides of all suspected neoplastic lesions.

All eligible participants received a letter signed by their colonoscopist introducing the study. A trained interviewer then contacted and interviewed participants by telephone. Alternatively, the questionnaire was mailed for self-completion and was followed by a telephone interview to resolve any remaining questions. An earlier study indicated that the results obtained for dietary factors were similar for both interview methods [13].

The interview itself consisted of a general questionnaire that focused on demographic characteristics, medical history, lifestyle, family history, and other topics. The dietary interview consisted of the Block food frequency questionnaire and specified food intake for a period 3 to 5 years before the colonoscopy [14].

Ultimately, 1956 dietary questionnaires were completed (80.1% of eligible patients). Of these, 71% were conducted by telephone, and 29% were returned by mail.

I note without a trace of irony, that in fact, the title of that segment of the Block Food Questionnaire is FAT SCREENER.

Yet look at these options:

Margarine, butter or mayo on bread or potatoes

Margarine, butter or oil in cooking

Put aside all of the problems associated with self-selection, sample size and all the other statistical-related reasons for skepticism pointed out by Tom Haughton in my last post...and consider this: the "conclusions" that have become conventional wisdom because the likes of Hannibal Lecter taking to the airwaves to spread the word that A PLANT BASED DIET is the key to avoiding cancer, the actual questionnaire they use to get these results to reach their conclusions makes no differentiation between animal-based butter and plant-based margarine.

But it gets worse.

I clicked on the ABOUT US link from the company responsible for this completely idiotic questionnaire, and find that there are two High Priests in the Church of Secular Science...ooops, I meant "Doctors," and a COO (a Marketing and IT guy) responsible for the creation of this questionnaire...

Dr. Gladys Block (Ph.D, Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins), Senior Scientist. Dr. Block is professor of Public Health Nutrition and Epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley. She continues to provide expertise and leadership in the development and analysis of NutritionQuest's dietary and physical activity instruments.

Torin Block, Chief Operating Officer, is the Manager of NutritionQuest. He has 11 years of experience in the development and analysis of dietary questionnaires. He is responsible for the design and development of the NutritionQuest Data-on-Demand system, including the development of electronic questionnaires, analysis algorithms and data management systems.

Clifford H. Block (Ph.D., Cognitive Psychology, Yale), Chief Behavioral Scientist. He has been the architect of many large-scale programs in health social marketing, education, and the application of new technologies. He directs NutritionQuest’s innovations in education and health behavior change, such as our emailed dietary intervention program.

An epidemeologist, a Marketing executive and a Chief Behavioral Scientist specializing in health social marketing.

You figure with all of that expertise, experience, certifications like PhD's (Piled Higher and Deeper has never been a more apropos description than here!), they would actually understand something as basic as THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MARGARINE AND BUTTER!!!

Of course, I think they know damn well what the difference is. This deliberate deception is certainly no accident.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

A couple of posts ago, I wrote about how I suspected that in someway, somehow, giant corporate food product manufacturers and agribusinesses were behind the promotion of lies and propaganda to make people think that saturated fats were bad, and fat free/fat reduced products were healthy.

Indie film producer Tom Naughton, made a movie to counter the propaganda film Supersize Me, called Fat Head. He also writes a blog under the same name, and he too is a proponent of the high fat/high protein diet contrary to the conventional wisdom.

My initial skepticism regarding the veracity of the study was based on the methodology of the study...in short, I thought it was quite ridiculous to claim a connection between cancer and ANY kind of food through a mass mailed questionnaire. I admit I didn't even try to find or read the study, I merely drew my own conclusions based on the article written about the study that drew the conclusion that animal fats causes cancer.

Naughton takes it much further and thoroughly debunks the initial study completely!

Behold:

Oh my gosh! I eat a lot of animal fat … I can feel my pancreas swelling up with tumors as I write. I’ve been issued a death sentence, and I know it’s accurate because – hold onto your seats, now – the article included the magic words STUDY FINDS right there in the sub-headline.

And what an amazing study this has turned out to be. So far it has indicated that being overweight in middle age will kill you, a lack of physical activity can increase your odds of breast cancer, red meat will give you colon cancer, alcohol can lead to pancreatic cancer and fruits and vegetables may protect against lung cancer … uh, but only in men. The study also achieved the amazing feat of indicating that dietary fat may lead to breast cancer – but red meat doesn’t.

Considering how many headlines this study has already produced – with more sure to follow – I’m going to suggest you memorize the name: The NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. I’m also going to suggest that when you spot an article that cites this study, you bookmark it, download it, print it, and then use the pages to paper-train a puppy.

Apparently, this one study that the NIH and the AARP conducted by mailing out questionnaires to AARP members has been used to generate all sorts of dietary/health conclusions...all of which have been than used generate an informational cascade in which it has now become the conventional wisdom that saturated fats are bad for you.

Here’s the first big problem with the study (the largest of its kind!): the survey itself. In order to determine what people eat, the investigators sent them a list of 120 foods and asked them to answer questions like this:

Over the last 12 months, how often did you eat the following foods? (Ignore any recent changes.)

Whole milk (4%), NOT in coffee, NOT on cereal: Never | 1-6 per year | 7-11 per year | 1 per month | 2-3 per month | 1-2 per week | 3-4 per week | 5-6 per week | 1 per day | 2-3 per day | 4-5 per day | 6+ per day. Portion size: less than ½ cup | ½ to 1 cup | more than 1 cup.

Breads or dinner rolls, NOT INCLUDING ON SANDWICHES: Never | 1-6 per year | 7-11 per year | 1 per month | 2-3 per month | 1-2 per week | 3-4 per week | 5-6 per week | 1 per day | 2-3 per day | 4-5 per day | 6+ per day. Portion size: less than 1 slice or roll | 1 or 2 slices or rolls | more than 2 slices or rolls.

Mayonnaise or mayonnaise-like salad dressing on bread: Never | 1-6 per year | 7-11 per year | 1 per month | 2-3 per month | 1-2 per week | 3-4 per week | 5-6 per week | 1 per day | 2-3 per day | 4-5 per day | 6+ per day. Portion size: less than 1 teaspoon | 1 to 3 teaspoons | more than 3 teaspoons.

Ground beef in mixtures such as tacos, burritos, meatballs, casseroles, chili, meatloaf: Never | 1-6 per year | 7-11 per year | 1 per month | 2-3 per month | 1-2 per week | 3-4 per week | 5-6 per week | 1 per day | 2-3 per day | 4-5 per day | 6+ per day. Portion size: less than 3 ounces | 3 to 7 ounces | more than 7 ounces.

Damn...just as I suspected. Ridiculous questions with no real possibility of getting accurate results to bolster their arguments when they reach their predetermined conclusions...

around 600,000 people did return the survey, which leads to the second problem: this is a self-selected group that doesn’t mirror the general population.

In the baseline data, it’s obvious that compared to the general population, the survey group is far more likely to be white (over 90 percent), well educated, and non-smoking. The authors admitted they were concerned about the low response rate (about 17 percent), but managed to discern that “a shifting and widening of the intake distributions among respondents compensated for the less-than-anticipated response rate.”

In other words, they declared this cross-section of the population varied enough for a study and decided to keep going. (Gotta pay that mortgage, you know.)

This, folks, is called MARKETING...NOT SCIENCE. I took Marketing in college, and this is the standard tactic for gathering marketing information so you can formulate a business plan.

Here’s the third problem: the self-selected group was winnowed down even further by the investigators. Yes, it’s common practice to try to dump incomplete or suspicious data, but in explaining how they determined if a survey was sufficiently complete, they stated, “In calculating our initial cohort sample size of 350,000 we focused on a single nutrient, dietary fat.”

Hmmm … sounds to me like they already had an opinion about which nutrient would wind up being linked to cancer. If they could determine how much fat you ate, you were in. Why fat? Why not sugar, or white flour, or corn flakes?

Why the fat? Gotta sell We the Sheeple on all of that highly profitable manufactured food products that are fat-free...non-fat...lite...reduced fat! We don't want them to know that REAL food that nourishes and strengthens the body is full of natural FAT.

Nearly ten years after the first survey, the authors mailed a similar questionnaire, along with others that asked about exercise, smoking and medications. Then they compared the respondents’ diets with their rates of various diseases, focusing primarily on cancer. That’s where they came up with all the crunchable numbers.

I've argued vehemently on the internet at various forums with people who are so brainwashed into believing that the modern, conventional dietary wisdom about saturated fats and heart disease and cancer are SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN. Is this what you call science?

So how well do numbers like these crunch? That’s the fourth big problem: they don’t crunch very well. They’re more on the squishy side. In one of their many papers, here’s how the researchers evaluated the accuracy of their own food-intake data:

So what does that statement mean? Here’s what a site that explains statistics in plain English has to say about correlation:

Correlations of less than 0.1 are as good as garbage. The correlation shown, 0.9, is very strong. Correlations have to be this good before you can talk about accurately predicting the Y value from the X value...

...But for this study, the estimated correlation (after being adjusted upwards) is between 0.36 and 0.76. In other words, the investigators themselves estimate that the accuracy of their food survey is somewhere between lousy and decent. Well, decent might be stretching it. The same analysis of their own study included this statement:

However, previous biomarker-based studies suggest that, due to correlation of errors in FFQs and self-report reference instruments such as the 24HR, the correlations and attenuation factors observed in most calibration studies, including ours, tend to overestimate FFQ performance.

So the lousy-to-decent estimate might be overestimated. Kudos to them for saying as much. And yet from this data, they’re going to look for correlations between diets and diseases and write a slew of research papers on what they find.

A slew of research papers, which are then cited as SCIENTIFIC STUDIES that are turned into headlines like Eating Animal Fat May Lead to Pancreatic Cancer.

Which brings us to the fifth big problem: the associations you find when looking at data depend largely on the associations you seek. In a study like this, you gather a huge amount of data, then you ask the data some questions. How you ask the question affects the answer.

Some months ago, the researchers asked this data if there was an association between red meat and colon cancer, and wouldn’t you know it, the data answered “yes.” At least that’s the story that made the headlines. But the truth is, the question they asked went more like this: “Do people who eat a lot of steaks, hot dogs, hamburgers, sausage, pizza, cold cuts, bacon and deli sandwiches have a higher rate of colon cancer?”

Grouping all those foods together under the label “red meat” confounds the question – and it wasn’t necessary to confound the question. In the food survey, “steaks” is a separate item. If you really want to know if red meat causes cancer, why not simply ask, “Do people who eat a lot steaks have a higher rate of colon cancer?” Maybe they did ask that question. Maybe they didn’t like the answer, so they asked it again and included pizza and hot dogs.

Here’s another strange grouping: the food survey lumped butter and margarine together as a single food item. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I read that one. Talk about confounding the data! Butter is natural. Margarine is a processed frankenfood. The only similarity is that people spread them on toast. You may as well lump cigarettes and carrot sticks together because they have the same shape.

Haughton is making a similar point to the one I made in my earlier post:

"Take your typical value meal at a hamburger fast food joint. It will contain saturated fats from the hamburger, partially-hydrogenated soy bean vegetable oil in the bun, rancid, poly-unsaturated vegetable oil for the deep fried french fries, not to mention copious quantities of corn syrup sweeteners and additives in the soda and condiments. If you are eating fast food, restaurant's meals, convenience food, etc., your meal will contain a variety of both animal and vegetable fats in it.

How the hell is a self-answer supplied questionnaire supposed to be able to adequately account for that?"

Haughton continues:

Even when researchers ask well-designed questions, there’s the “don’t ask, don’t tell” problem: there may be associations lurking in the data that no one is looking for. When Ancel Keys cherry-picked six countries and went looking for an association between fat and heart disease, he found it. But the same overall data showed a much stronger association between sugar and heart disease … and an even stronger association between television ownership and heart disease.

Which brings us to the sixth problem: Associations are only useful for providing clues. They don’t identify the cause. There’s a strong association between obesity and type II diabetes. Does that mean being fat causes diabetes? Nope. It could mean diabetes makes you fat. Or, more likely, it could mean obesity and diabetes are both caused by excess insulin. You get the idea.

I certainly do. Too bad the dupes and useful idiots in the mainstream press don't. No, they take these biased, subjective and erroneous conclusions based on faulty methodology, and indoctrinate society into accepting falsehoods as conventional wisdom with a myriad of articles, columns, TV reporting stories all pushing the same BS.

Haughton's conclusion is going to be my new reference point whenever I read the latest "FAT IS BAD" propaganda...

The next time you see yet another paper from this study (the largest of its kind!) generate yet another round of alarmist headlines about the possible dangers of animal fats (and you will), keep this in mind about The NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study:

What we’re looking at is 1) a survey study with a low response rate that 2) required old people to accurately recall what they’d eaten in the past year (twice), which then provided data that is 3) almost certainly polluted by self-selection and confounding variables, and is 4) being analyzed by researchers who indicated from the beginning that their main concern is dietary fat, all for the purpose of 5) identifying associations, which don’t tell us very much anyway.

I'd like to see just who it was that REALLY financed the NIH to conduct this study with the willing dupes in the AARP...let's just say I wouldn't doubt it if somehow the money trail eventually got back to giant food/agriculture producers.

You know, the same people responsible for lobbying the Federal governmental agencies to produce a "Food Pyramid" guide telling everyone to eat copious amounts of grains.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Things are going pretty bleak for me on the financial front...not good times for me in the current Obamageddon economy that is going to one day be looked upon as The Great Depression 2.0...I'm late on my rent, I'm faced with taking a pay cut or being laid off, and I'm filing for bankruptcy. Let's just say I needed a bit of humor to cheer up the spirits a bit today.

I just checked out The Onion for the first time today in quite some time, and I found a hilarious satire about domestic violence shelters that I think the MRA/MGTOW readers and bloggers could certainly enjoy:

Despite having no other household responsibilities to occupy their time, none of the residents of the Cleveland YWCA Battered Women's Shelter can prepare a decent hot meal by 6 p.m., sources at the shelter reported Tuesday. "If it's not burned or under-seasoned, it's the same goddamn thing they made yesterday," said group counselor Devon Martin, who doesn't work all day long in the shelter's therapy sessions to microwave his own leftovers. "Without mastering this important life skill, these women will never be able to leave the shelter. It's not like they got anywhere else to go, anyway." Although records show the shelter houses more than 100 battered women, there is some speculation that this number may be exaggerated, as hardly any of the laundry bags left in the hallway get taken care of.

After having a good laugh, I decided to check out the archives and find if the Onion had other pieces making fun of feminism...

I just got back from a semester abroad in Europe, and let me tell you, it truly was the most magical, amazing experience of my entire life. The French countryside was like something out of a storybook, the Roman ruins were magnificent, and the men, well, European men are by far the most romantic in the world....

...European men know the most romantic little cafés and bistros and trattorias, candlelit places where you can be alone and drink the most fantastic wine. They tell you what's on the menu and what you should try. (If it wasn't for a certain young man in Milan, I never would have discovered fusilli a spinaci et scampi.) And the whole time, they're looking deep into your eyes, like you're the only woman on the entire planet. What woman could resist a man like that? Then, after a moonlit stroll along the waterfront and a kiss in the doorway of their artist's loft, you find yourself unable to—well, I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

I'll never forget my magical semester abroad. One thing's for sure—I'm ruined for American men forever!

Ruined for American men? You don't say...many American women don't even have to leave the country, and they're already been ruined for American Men by the cultural zeitgeist and feminist brainwashing they've been subjected to for their entire lives!

On to the counterpoint:

Counterpoint - American Women Studying In Europe Are Unbelievably Easy

I'm a 25-year-old carpenter living in Rome, and I don't mind telling you that I get all the action I can handle. I'm not all that handsome or well-dressed, and I'm certainly not rich. In fact, my Italian countrywomen could take me or leave me. But that's just fine, because Rome gets loads of tourist traffic, and American co-eds traveling through Europe are without a doubt the easiest lays in the world....

...For dinner, I usually take them to some cheap little hole in the wall, someplace deserted where not even the cops eat. American girls think candlelight means "romance," not "deteriorating public utilities," so they just poke their nipples through their J. Crew sweaters and never notice that there's no electricity. Just as well, because Roman restaurants aren't exactly the cleanest. After a bunch of fast-talk about the menu, I get them the special, which is usually some anonymous pasta with spinach and day-old shrimp, and whatever cheap, generic, Pope's-blood chianti's at the bottom of the list.

By this time, they're usually standing in a slippery little puddle. Going in for the kill, I walk them past one of Rome's famous 2,000-year-old open cesspools. Then, as we open the door to my shitty efficiency, I kiss them on the eyelids so they don't see the roaches, making sure the first thing they see is the strategically positioned artist's easel I bought at some church sale. That's usually all they need to see and, like clockwork, they fall backwards on my bed with their Birkenstocks in the air.

I mean, they're hardly Italian women, but we have a saying here in Europe: Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

According to a study released Monday, women—once empowered primarily via the assertion of reproductive rights or workplace equality with men—are now empowered by virtually everything the typical woman does.

If one were to watch nothing but Oprah, The View, The Lifetime Channel and Oxygen network, it would be hard to make a case that this piece were simply satire...

Some of the empowering actions of the modern day Empowered America Women:

Shoe Shopping:

"Shopping for shoes has emerged as a powerful means by which women assert their autonomy," Klein said. "Owning and wearing dozens of pairs of shoes is a compelling way for a woman to announce that she is strong and independent, and can shoe herself without the help of a man. She's saying, 'Look out, male-dominated world, here comes me and my shoes.'"

Eating Energy Bars:

"Unlike traditional, phallocentric energy bars, whose chocolate, soy protein, nuts, and granola ignored the special health and nutritional needs of women, their new, female-oriented counterparts like Luna are ideally balanced with a more suitable amount of chocolate, soy protein, nuts, and granola," Klein said. "Proto-feminist pioneers like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony could never have imagined that female empowerment would one day come in bar form."

Dressing like a slut:

...today's feminist asserts control over her biological destiny by wearing a baby-doll T-shirt with the word "Hoochie" spelled in glitter.

"Don't tell this bitch what to do," said Kari Eastley, 24, a participant in the Oberlin study and, according to one of her T-shirts, a "Slut Goddess." "I wear what I want when I want, and no man is going to tell me otherwise. We're talking Pussy Power, baby."

Accessibility to empowerment (this one is real good!):

Klein said empowerment is now accessible to women who were long excluded.

"Not every woman can become a physicist or lobby to stop a foundry from dumping dangerous metals into the creek her children swim in," Klein said. "Although these actions are incredible, they marginalize the majority of women who are unable to, or just don't particularly care to, achieve such things. Fortunately for the less impressive among us, a new strain of feminism has emerged in which mundane activities are championed as proud, bold assertions of independence from oppressive patriarchal hegemony."

This particular piece saves the best line for last...

...You Go Girl!:

Only by lauding every single thing a woman does, no matter how ordinary, can you truly go, girls."

LMAO

Here's a piece that makes fun of a topic we are all very familiar with...the modern feminist idea that women must achieve success and fulfillment through becoming a wage slave to a corporation rather than having a family and being a homemaker:

"Technical and repair professions with zero prospects for advancement are no longer viewed solely as the realm of males," Detweiller said. "Women have proved that they are just as adept as men at frittering their lives away in soul-crushing vocations,"...

..."There is nothing that says women can't experience the manifold of crippling defeats life has to offer," said Elizabeth Mooney, a 46-year-old career counselor. "A woman shouldn't feel as though she has to forfeit her chances of raising three disappointing children with a man she doesn't love simply because she chose to squander the best years of her life working as a career counselor."

Though a greater number of women have decided to waste their fleeting youth toiling away in unrewarding jobs, other statistics have shown that a growing faction are embracing the more traditional alternative of slipping quietly into a painless death with a handful of sleeping pills and a bottle of Gordon's gin.

Now that was a much needed dose of humor!

I swear, some of the Onion's editors and writers must be MRA's or MGTOW's....